//------------------------------// // Confessions, Classrooms and Love's True colors // Story: The Teachings of Lost Love // by ChaoticHarmony //------------------------------// [}—–{ Lessons of Lost Love }–—{] Confessions, Classrooms and Love’s True Colors Cheerilee found herself doing something she had been doing quite often of late: sulking. If anypony had asked her what she was doing there in the classroom, she would have perked up and lied to their face, saying that she was only tidying up the mess that the fillies and colts create on a daily basis. Of course, she knew that it would have been a lie, and she knew that she was very much not cleaning up. In a manner that had been repeated many times over the past hour, Cheerilee took in a breath and let out a dejected sigh. I wonder where Big Mac has been. Sighing again, the teacher idly shifted aside one of the desks that were just barely out of place, something that only a mare like Twilight Sparkle would even begin to notice. He hasn’t come by for a while now. The desk continued its journey back and forth between being too far one way or another from its destination, screeching across the wood as it did so. Sighing for the third time in about a minute, Cheerilee turned away from the desk which had now been moved within a nanometer of where it had originally been when it was first placed into the classroom. Jumping up into the chair behind her teacher’s desk, Cheerilee bent down and rested her face against the cold wood, relishing in the relief that the coolness brought to her troubled mind. Of course, she wasn’t able to just simply remain still, her hooves reaching out to roll a pencil back and forth. She sat there for some time, content to simply play with the writing utensil until she suddenly jerked upwards and looked sadly at the thing in her hooves. “Is it because I tried to pry into his life?” The question hung in the air as the pencil simply sat there in her hooves, refusing to give her an answer. With a frustrated grunt (or something of that nature), Cheerilee jolted out of her chair and tossed the pencil into the trashcan with equal ire. “Why can’t I ever have someone to talk to!?” Because, her logical and somewhat cynical side said, you’re the teacher. You’re supposed to be the one with all the answers. Cheerilee couldn’t help but to huff out another breath at the truth that she couldn’t fight, because she knew it was true. She snagged the apple that Applebloom had brought from her farm that day, looking wistfully at its red skin. It was another Big Macintosh apple, shining like the coat of the stallion who shared its name. After a moment of quiet contemplation, she took a large bite that sent the resounding crunch that is often associated with biting into a fresh apple echoing through the room. Just as she had sent the apple core sailing into the air to follow the way of the pencil that she had condemned to a fate of rotting away at some dump, the sound of hooves at the door filled the room. They weren’t heavy, nor were they very loud, yet in the wondering silence that had enveloped Cheerilee they seemed like the thundering hooves that had trampled along the forest path in the Running of the Leaves. For a moment, she contemplated simply doing nothing; allowing whoever was knocking to simply assume that she wasn’t there and leave. At least, she did until another set of knocks came, followed by a soft voice; a voice that she knew fairly well. “Miss Cheerilee, are you in there?” After a breath to calm herself as well as to bring out her ‘cheerful teacher’ face, Cheerilee began to make her way over to the door. The dark brown wood swung away to reveal the crimson face of a stallion. “Why, hello Big Mac!” Silence was the only thing that greeted her words as she smiled at the farm pony, who did nothing but look at her still. After a few seconds, something clicked. Big Macintosh didn’t look like the stallion that he usually was; where he held himself up he was now sagging down, as if the weight of a thousand apple carts were pressing onto his back. The once sturdy legs of corded muscle trembled with the same emotion that shone in the stallion’s eyes: fear. “Big Mac? What’s wrong?” Her only answer was a shake of his crimson head and a helpless look past her into the classroom. A wave of worry washing through her, Cheerilee led the stallion into the empty room and sat him down in her chair, pulling up a smaller chair for herself as she stared at the stallion with concern. As soon as she opened her mouth, a red hoof shot into the air and cut her off. “Miss Cheerilee.” Big Macintosh spoke slowly, as if he was having trouble finding his words. “Ah’m needin’ some advice from somepony an’ Ah don’t know who Ah can take this to but you.” The tremble in the stallion’s breath sent another wave of concern and fear crashing through Cheerilee’s body as he took a deep breath before continuing. “What exactly happened between you an’ Mister Rich?” When she remained silent, the stallion looked at her with those damned pleading eyes again. Seeing those great emeralds enveloped in pain sent two shards of pain deep into her own heart, seeing a stallion as strong and sure as Big Macintosh being made to be like this. “What Ah mean to ask is, how did it end?” He didn’t have to specify what “it” was. “Big Mac, what’s wrong?” The repeated question remained hanging in the air as the stallion shook his head, looking as if he was on the verge of tears. Cheerilee herself took in a shaky breath as she prepared to delve into the most unpleasant memory that she had ever had the displeasure to relive; something that she found herself doing from time to time despite how much pain it brought her. “Well, the beginning of the end, as you could say, was towards the end of the school year. I had been eating lunch with some of my friends.” Cheerilee plopped her tray down onto the table, letting out a small grunt as she herself followed it down, except onto the long bench that ran parallel with it instead. “Hi girls!” She made herself sound cheerful despite how perfectly awful she felt on the inside, receiving a whole chorus of greetings in return. Looking down at today’s fare, she was greeted with another thing, the sight of the slop that the school continually tried to pass off as food despite the numerous complaints from the students. Normally she didn’t eat at the school but rather went out with her coltfriend to get something to eat, but that would have meant that she’d have to see him more than she was strictly required to. And so she swallowed the bile that was attempting to force its way out of her mouth, Cheerilee scooped up a spoonful of the muck and shoved it into her mouth, fighting back tears that came rushing up at the completely awful taste of the school’s food. “So, Cheerilee,” the voice of one of her friends pulled her away from the agony of her taste buds long enough for her to swallow, “why aren’t you with your precious ‘Richey’?” A rush of anger was quickly put down as she simply smiled. “Because, I wanted to be with you guys is all.” Scooping up another bite of food for cover (and instantly regretting it), she let out a giggle. “I don’t have to be with him all the time, I mean I do have other friends, right?” “Of course you do!” The stallion beside her threw his hoof over her shoulder and laughed good naturedly. “Glad to have you back around, Cherry, been kind of gloomy without you here.” Cheerilee blushed at the use of her old nickname, returning all of the smiles from the friends that she had been neglecting for ages but who were welcoming her back into their fold as if she had just been gone for a day. The smile was wiped away when the door slammed open and a coarse voice rang out over the cafeteria. “Cheerilee?!” The brown stallion with a slicked-back mane stomped over to her and pulled her roughly out of the other pony’s grasp. “What are you doing here with them? Why weren’t you with me? And more importantly, why did he have his hooves around you?!” Cheerilee opened her mouth to speak, but was stopped by another flurry of words. “You know what, it doesn’t even matter. You’re coming with me.” Cheerilee glanced back at her friends as her colt friend dragged her away from the table, every single one of them having either pity for her or anger at Filthy Rich burning in their eyes. Something inside of her snapped. She pulled her hoof away from the stallion that was dragging her out of her own life. “No.” Then she found herself looking towards the cafeteria wall that was on her right, her vision swimming with little black dots. Then it hit her, Filthy had slapped her. The thing that had snapped inside of her now splintered into a thousand shards of rage as she turned back to the pony who had been nothing but misery to her for the past few months. “I. Said. No.” Then, she reared back and punched him right in his rich-boy face. Looking down at the stallion who was clutching at his nose, she couldn’t feel any pity, only regret for the time that she had wasted by thinking he had been her love. Then a rush of happiness and excitement flowed through her, starting at the hooves but working its way up into her throat as she spoke the words that she had never thought she would have ever said. “We’re over, Filthy. Stay out of my life.” “After he crossed that line, there wasn’t any forgiveness. I left his sorry rump on that cold ground with blood gushing down his face as I turned away from the life of oppressive ‘love’ and into the world of being single.” Cheerilee shook her head and snorted bitterly. Silence hung over the two ponies as they sat in the semi-darkness of the classroom, the kind of silence that follows a particularly interesting story, the sort of stunned silence that you had finally reached the end of whatever tale you had been reading. The seconds stretched into minutes before Cheerilee broke the silence into millions of glimmering shards of nothing. “Big Mac? What’s wrong? I can’t help y-“ Then, before her very eyes, the strong and stalwart stallion broke. He did not just fall down and cry. No, he broke like a twig that was dug too hard into the ground. One second had passed as he made the transformation between shaky calm into helpless sobs. Reacting in a way that she had done for many saddened colts and fillies that had entered her classroom, Cheerilee pulled the shaking pony into a warm hug and brushed her hoof through his sandy mane. “Shhh, my little pony. It will be all right. Shhh.” Despite her feeling ridiculous at comforting a pony who was at least twice her size, Cheerilee soon felt the shuddering soften into small shivers and eventually into nothing but deep breathing. As he pulled away, Big Macintosh gave her a sheepish smile. “Ah’m sorry, it’s just…” he teetered on the edge of tears again as whatever was worrying him threatened to overcome his tentative calm once again. After a steadying breath, he continued. “Ah’m worried is all. Ah was just at the market again, an’ Ah saw… him again. Ah just couldn’t stop myself and Ah asked him if he wanted to go out and get some supper with me.” “Well, that’s good then!” Cheerilee smiled at the stallion, but only received a frantic head shake in return. “That’s where you’re wrong, Miss Cheerilee.” Big Macintosh had to force himself to take another deep breath before he broke down again. His calmness somewhat restored, he made another attempt to venture into the realm of his worries. “Ah just… Ah think that my family would cast me out. Ah’d probably get run out of town by my own family if they found out. An’ what about him? How would he feel about havin’ to hide it? Or if we didn’t, how would he feel about havin’ my kin attackin’ us just for who we love?” The calm that the stallion had regained was beginning to tremble. “Ah just don’t know what Ah should do anymore!” With that, the calm shattered and he was a scared, helpless pony who was in over his head again. The tears barely had time to make their way to the surface before Cheerilee pulled him into yet another hug. They sat there for what seemed like hours, oblivious to every tick that passed through the room. The wind gusted against the windows and rattled the shutters, sending a few resounding clacks to shatter the silence that surrounded the two ponies. “Big Mac?” Cheerilee’s voice seemed even softer than it would have normally, contrasting against the noise of wood against brick. “Eeyup?” “You know, there’s something I learned about love when I was with Filthy.” Cheerilee smiled at the stallion as he pulled back to shoot her a confused look. “Well, something more important than any of the other things.” She stood and made her way over to the window, shutting the noisy shutters with a snap. The silence only lasted for a few seconds until Cheerilee broke it again. “I learned that even though our relationship had its troubles, more than any pony should have to go through, there was still something good about it. It was love, even though I was blind to truth, it was still love.” The view of the field outside of the window wavered as Cheerilee’s eyes grew misty. “What do you mean, Miss Cheerilee?” “I mean that even though being with him brought me pain, I still also wanted to be with him, because having somepony else in the world who loves you is one of the greatest feelings in Equestria.” The first tear fell from her face, gently wetting the windowsill. “I didn’t care about what my family or my friends thought of me, because they couldn’t tell me what to feel or how to feel it. They weren’t me.” More tears slowly made their way down her cheeks as she lifted a hoof to wipe them away, constantly being replaced by others that rushed to flow forth with the pain that throbbed from the old wound in her heart. “But even though it was good, it also brought me pain.” “What do you think Ah should do, Miss Cheerilee?” She turned around, blinking away the rest of the tears and smiling at the worried-looking stallion in the chair before her. “I think it’s up to you to weigh the risks that you see and choose for yourself. Only you can tell yourself how you feel.” Cheerilee let out a weak chuckle before turning away to wipe off the tears that she had been unable to blink out of existence. Big Macintosh didn’t let her go far before he grabbed her with a hoof and swung her into a comforting hug. “Thank you, Miss Cheerilee. Ah’m ready to do what Ah need to do now.” Releasing the teacher from the prison of his strong hooves, he turned away and pushed open the door. Before he stepped out into the late-afternoon light, he glanced back at the mare that was still standing right where he had released her. “Thank you kindly, Miss Cheerilee. Ah’ll be seein’ you around.” After the door clicked shut, Cheerilee found herself with the warm feeling that always came from teaching somepony else. “No. Thank you, Big Mac.” Even now, she felt the pain of the past receding into the corners of her mind, much less than before now that she had shared it with somepony else. “Thank you for everything.” A bird’s tweeting sweetened the air as she sighed with contentedness. Only one thing left to do. Cheerilee turned and trotted behind her desk, reaching into the topmost drawer and drawing out a little pink journal. Once her hoof brushed against it, she was greeted again with the sweet, and not-so-sweet, memories of her ventures into other pony’s lives. As she opened its aged covers, she was greeted with the old words that she had scrawled along its pages. Mayor Mare – FAILURE She recalled with a smile the horribly awkward mare that had come to her for romance lessons. “She never did like to give up. It took about five months before she stopped pestering me.” Her words hung in the empty room as she turned the page. Carrot Cake – SUCCESS Another smile crossed her face as she remembered the even more awkward stallion that had come to her with questions regarding catching the eye of a pony that you had a crush on. “I still don’t know how he got past that affair that Cupcake had with that stallion from Fillydelphia. I guess he always was the loyal and forgiving one.” Cheerilee suppressed a sigh as she turned to one of the pages in the back of the book, one that was clean and as white as freshly fallen snow. Bending down to retrieve the pencil that she had previously cast away to the realm of garbage, she softly jotted down another entry. Big Macintosh Apple – ?